Medea's Curse Read online

  Natalie glared at him. She knew what he was trying to do.

  ‘I can take your drums in the van,’ Shaun continued, looking at Tom now.

  Tom hesitated, looked at Natalie and shrugged. She knew she’d lost, but wasn’t sure that at the end of the day she hadn’t wanted to.

  The first bracket was always a warm-up but it took longer than usual to settle in. Groups of people hovered around the bar, leaving the dance floor empty. By the end of the set, though, the crowd was having as much fun as the band and Natalie recognised a few of the regulars. Beer slopping from glasses had hit the floor and the air was sweet and hot.

  Vince brought her a Corona in the break. ‘You in any trouble?’ Vince had a strong fatherly streak.

  ‘What sort of trouble?’

  ‘The sort that’s in the bar asking after you.’

  Natalie looked at Vince sharply. He was the other side of sixty and, if the scar on his neck was anything to go by, knew trouble when he saw it. She thought about Tom seeing a man outside her warehouse and wondered if it was a patient stalking her. She didn’t work with men anymore. Maybe a patient’s partner?

  ‘Describe him,’ she said, wiping her brow. It was hot out on the stage.

  ‘Benny told me some jerk’s been asking about your band but seemed more interested in you; said he backed down as soon as Benny pressed him. Same bloke I guess. A smart arse, know what I’m saying?’

  Liam. Shit. ‘Where is he?’

  Natalie considered going out front and telling him to bugger off. He’d probably laugh. Pubs were, after all public, and she didn’t own the Halfpenny. Vince did, though, and he’d be more than happy to throw Liam out on his ear. Maybe she’d keep that favour for when she really needed it. Right now there was a definite upside to Liam’s presence. Her need to expend some sexual energy was escalating and she’d rather not fall back into bad habits with Tom. Not that Liam was a good habit to start, and she had promised herself she wouldn’t get involved. ‘No more than the usual man trouble,’ she assured Vince and turned to the band.

  ‘Guys, can we change a number in the next bracket?’

  They started with a few of their own songs. It was hard to see from the stage with the lights on her, but she picked out Liam on a bar stool along the wall, watching.

  Fancy this? Shaun sketched out the opening riff of ‘Because the Night’ on his Roland. It was one of Natalie’s favourite covers and she’d practised enough to lend it her own style; Tom called it the sex-on-a-stick mix.

  She sang the opening line, voice low and husky, and imagined Liam taking her as the words left her lips. She was fairly certain it would be what he was thinking. She sang about being touched and she could all but feel his hands on her as the lights were burning on her skin. In the second she finished the song their eyes locked and it was clear he knew she’d been singing it for him.

  She had the audience calling for more. Natalie was acutely aware that the song had the same effect on her she had hoped it would have on Liam; desperate had now moved into almost uncontrollable. She reminded herself that it was a really, really bad idea to get involved with this man. He was married, problem enough. But she sensed he was bad news in other ways she couldn’t put her finger on. The self-warning, the sense of danger, only accentuated her desire.

  She took her time coming out front, more to get control of herself than to make him wait. He was back at the bar, a spare stool next to him and a Corona ready.

  ‘How touching, you remembered.’ Natalie handed it back to Vince who was watching closely from the other side of the bar. He exchanged it for bourbon. Neat. Liam raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Your after-performance preference?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘You were great, incidentally,’ said Liam, his expression revealing little. The blue eyes were more used to reading others than giving anything away. ‘But you know that.’

  He looked less lawyer tonight and more Sinn Féin. Something about the curl over one eye and the black leather jacket. And the stubble. He smelled good. Not cologne, just male.

  ‘So can I ask what the fuck you’re doing here?’

  He grinned. A man used to getting what he wanted; she wasn’t overly upset that right now it was her. ‘I misplaced your phone number and thought I’d deliver the message in person.’

  Like that was believable. ‘The message?’

  ‘Thursday, five o’clock. Interview with Travis at Welbury police station. If Chloe is still missing.’

  ‘You don’t seriously expect me to go to Welbury?’ She thought of Kay’s eyes on her, of Amber, of the photo of Chloe. What were the police doing in the meantime? A week off had to mean they would be putting pressure on Travis for a confession.

  ‘I’m here to persuade you.’ He sat back and looked her up and down. Tight leather low-riders, and a small black tank top. She could tell he’d already taken them off in his imagination.

  ‘I was thinking of staying overnight after the interview and coming back in the morning. You could drive up with me.’

  Natalie stared at him. She reminded herself he was serious trouble too, that all he was doing was trying to even up the scores. Did one bruised ego equal one roll in the sheets? Knowing this did nothing to stop her wanting him. But if he thought he could call the shots he was mistaken. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Vince shaking his head.

  ‘I’ll think about it.’ She turned towards the door. Liam grabbed her arm. Brave…or foolish, given their history.

  ‘Honey you’re not leaving already, surely?’ He slipped off the stool and was standing next to her. He might not have been tall, but even with her platform shoes on he still had more than ten centimetres on her. She could feel the power in his hand. Somewhere in his busy legal career he must have found some time for weights. Natalie could see Vince poised for action; she caught his eye. Reluctantly he eased off.

  She turned back to Liam. ‘I do things on my own timeline.’ She shook her arm out of his grip, heart pounding, and walked away without looking back.

  It was only hours later, in bed alone, she marvelled that she’d managed it. Not without help though. She’d picked Tom up on the way out of the bar and he’d only just left.

  Jessie was on time, more or less: session two and still in the honeymoon phase.

  ‘You asked me about boyfriends last week,’ she said. ‘And I said no.’ Shit no, actually. ‘Which is true. But there is Hannah.’

  Natalie waited. The abuse history wasn’t the only thing Jessie had kept from her.

  ‘I mean I’m not with her if she’s locked up, right?’

  ‘Hannah’s in prison?’

  ‘Armed rob. One of her druggie friends must have done a deal with the cops. The robbery happened before we got together; she needed the money to pay her dealer. She’s been clean since I moved in.’

  ‘How long has she been there?’

  ‘A year.’ Jessie’s tone made it sound more like a decade. ‘Four more, minimum.’

  A year fitted with the timing of the initial GP letter.

  ‘Was this why you were originally referred?’

 
Jessie nodded. ‘We’d been together six months. She wanted me to get help.’

  Natalie noted the genuine warmth and sorrow for her partner, not just her own loss.

  ‘After that, I mean Jay was around…’ She shrugged.

  Jay—Jesse—Cadek, Jessie’s stepbrother. Perhaps he’d provided enough support for Jessie to ignore the earlier referral.

  ‘So why come to see me now?’

  ‘It’s really hard,’ said Jessie. ‘I don’t want to cut up. Hannah always asks how I’m doing, but she isn’t there. I don’t feel I can talk to her about it. I mean she’s the one in prison, I’ve got it easy.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean it feels easy.’

  By the end of the session Natalie felt there was a good base to work with, the connection a little stronger, though she still wasn’t certain why after all this time the situation had reached crisis point for Jessie.

  She watched Jessie leave through the car park and get into a beaten-up Commodore. A gangly man with a ponytail of mousy hair, who had been leaning against the car, tossed a cigarette into the gutter and moved into the driver’s seat. Jay, she assumed.

  The rest of the day dragged. Natalie didn’t get her mail until she was about to leave. Beverley passed her a USB stick. Natalie frowned. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Arrived in the mail. I’d forgotten,’ said Beverley. ‘In a red envelope. No explanation. I thought you must have been expecting it.’

  Natalie was pretty sure Beverley hadn’t thought about it at all. She fingered the small red device, worried about the possibility of a virus, but curiosity won. It contained a single Word document. She opened the file.

  Just one line. I wouldn’t get too close if I were you.

  She hated the adrenaline that surged through her, didn’t want to believe that one stupid sentence could make her feel so vulnerable.

  She took a breath, closed the file and put the USB in her top drawer.

  Instead of getting on her bike and going straight home she walked to the nearest newsagents, ten minutes away. The first card had been hand delivered, and she was certain the USB came from the same author. In the back of the shop were the same red envelopes and cards, but of course the girl behind the counter had no recollection of anyone buying any the previous week. Natalie hadn’t really thought she’d get any useful information. There was nothing she could report that anyone could do anything about in any case.

  She just needed to be proactive in some way.

  Chapter 7

  ‘From a diagnostic point of view,’ said Natalie, ‘Georgia presents some interesting possibilities. The differential diagnoses to consider are Dissociative Identity Disorder—D.I.D.—and a personality disorder, Cluster B.’ She smiled at Wadhwa and clicked the mouse.

  Georgia’s case conference at Yarra Bend had attracted most of the hospital’s forensic psychiatrists and registrars, as well as several psychologists and a few nurses. Today Corinne was also present. There were obvious similarities with the well-publicised case of Kathleen Folbigg, a New South Wales mother convicted of killing her four children, largely on the basis of her diary entries. The previous week’s discussion of Celeste’s treatment-resistant schizophrenia had not been such a crowd-puller.

  Natalie’s new slide showed a list of symptoms.

  ‘These are the symptoms of D.I.D.,’ she said, clicking again. A tick, a question mark or a cross came up against each symptom. There were only three ticks. She progressed to the next slide.

  ‘And these are the symptoms of borderline, narcissistic and antisocial personality disorder.’ The next click brought up an array of ticks and a few question marks. Only two crosses. ‘As you can see,’ said Natalie, avoiding Wadhwa’s eyes, ‘there seems to be more evidence suggestive of a personality disorder in Georgia’s case.’ Catching Corinne’s stern expression she added, ‘At this stage.’

  ‘Dr King,’ Wadhwa interjected, ‘there is no reason she cannot have both D.I.D. and a personality disorder. Indeed, a childhood abuse history is essential to both diagnoses. She will not have a robust personality structure; this will predispose her to a Dissociative Identity Disorder. This can be read about in my paper in the Journal of—’

  ‘I agree,’ said Natalie. Her registrar hid a giggle at Wadhwa’s open-mouthed stare. ‘In general. In Georgia’s case though’—she clicked back to the list of D.I.D. symptoms —‘this remains to be proven, don’t you think? Particularly given narcissistic and antisocial traits came up on the MMPI inventory.’ Unable to stop herself smiling as she said it, she added, ‘As well as the high lie score.’ The registrar was less successful this time, turning the giggle into a cough.

  Wadhwa waved his hand dismissively. ‘The lie scale is always high in criminal cases. She is trying to appear better than she is. Georgia has at least three different personalities, so that’s Criterion One. They clearly have power over her—they caused her to kill her children: Criterion Two. She has periods of lack of recall: Criterion Three.’

  ‘The lie score does suggest we need to treat what she says with a certain amount of scepticism does it not?’ Natalie replied. The test was designed to catch people trying to fake symptoms. In over five hundred dull, repetitive questions, even smart fakers were caught. ‘Besides, I haven’t ever seen any other personality. My reading suggests that though the diagnostic criteria state there must be at least two distinct and enduring personalities that take control less than five per cent of those said to have it actually fit this description.’

  There was a moment when it seemed everyone was holding their breath, but before Wadhwa could open his mouth, Corinne spoke up, glaring at Natalie as she did.

  ‘Dr King, could it be that she decompensates and that these other personalities come out with Professor Wadhwa because he is male?’ Corinne, prior to the MBA, had been a psychiatric nurse. She didn’t often use this knowledge, but management-speak wasn’t going to cover the current situation.

  ‘I guess it’s possible,’ Natalie conceded reluctantly. Her registrar spent more time with Georgia than Natalie did, and hadn’t seen any different personalities. But she was female too. ‘I’m not convinced I see anything other than her putting on an act.’

  ‘Is it possible that being a woman makes you less sympathetic?’ said Corinne.

  Natalie was too startled to be worried by Wadhwa’s smug expression. ‘Because she killed her children and the maternal part of me can’t forgive her for that?’

  Corinne nodded.

  ‘Maybe.’ Actually Natalie was convinced the maternal part of her was either deeply buried or had never developed. Still, dealing with women who killed their children raised a range of feelings. When she first took on Amber, she’d experienced surges of irrational anger. It had taken several sessions with Declan to work through and redirect her feelings of anger at her own mother from a long time ago.

  ‘It might be good for you to keep working with her,’ Corinne suggested to Natalie.

  ‘I would be most happy to,’ said Wadhwa. ‘My research into Dissociative identity will be most beneficial—’

  ‘Exactly why you can’t work with her,’ Corinne said. ‘Include her in your research by all means, Professor Wadhwa, but if she gets bail, and she may well, the condition
of the court is likely to be that she continues to see a therapist. Natalie would be better placed.’

  Wadhwa looked no happier about this than Natalie felt. At best, she felt ambivalence towards Georgia. There was none of the sympathy she had for Amber. At least it gave her a chance to both discredit Wadhwa’s diagnosis and to understand Georgia better. Natalie could hang a label from the manual on her, but that wasn’t the same as deep understanding. She had assessed other women who had killed their children; Georgia was different.

  Natalie acknowledged Corinne’s curt nod, a vote of confidence from the manager, even if she hadn’t won all the points in the round against Wadhwa.

  ‘You clearly have a problem with Georgia,’ Declan said, crossing his legs and leaning forward.

  ‘I think my diagnosis is spot on, even if Wadhwa—’

  ‘You know I’m not referring to your diagnosis or your problem with Wadhwa, Natalie.’

  Natalie had known Declan Ryan since she was sixteen. A long stay in the orthopaedic ward, then rehab, meant she’d been a captive audience—but determined all the same not to talk to him. She had put him into the category of ‘boring old people’, always immaculately dressed with a manner that bordered on ponderous. It was one of the few times that her first impressions had been proved wrong.

  Early in the relationship Declan had delivered his précis of her psychopathology. ‘You can spend the rest of your life punishing your mother and yourself if you want to,’ he concluded. ‘Your choice.’

  She had been stunned. All she could say was fuck.

  The relationship had since gone from strength to strength. He’d had two of his own teenagers at the time, so probably had lots of practice with bad behaviour. Years later, after an incident in her intern year, she had agreed, under instruction from the Medical Board, to see him again. They had been meeting weekly for nearly seven years. At least she was down to one medication now, and she no longer required blood tests. Declan had taken some convincing on this.